Bridgeport celebrates their IPA’s birthday by sending it to space

Hot on the heels of Elon Musk sending a Tesla into space is another craft brewery with galactic goals. Oregon’s Bridgeport Brewing recently sent their original IPA to the stars.

Lying just above the troposphere (where the planet’s clouds and weather generate) is the stratosphere. At the equator, the stratosphere begins around 60,000 feet, or roughly 11 miles up. Would you call the stratosphere actual “space”? NASA, which was formed in 1958, has loosely stated space begins above the Earth’s lower atmosphere (troposphere). The U.S. state department hasn’t made anything official either, just some guidelines.

Felix Baumgartner’s epic record-breaking balloon jump in 2012 was 24 miles up from the upper level of the stratosphere. (Side fact, he hit a top speed of 843.6 mph on that jump, aka Mach 1.25.)

Basically, if you’re in the stratosphere, it’s fair to start saying you are in space. Even if it’s just the beginning of space.

Celebrating the 22nd anniversary of Bridgeport’s Original IPA, the brewery sent three bottles soaring 22 miles high in the sky in south Texas. The IPA hit the stratosphere and landed just 55 miles away from the “launch” pad.

You might be wondering – Why? Simple. It’s something freaking cool to do. Bridgeport has been brewing India pale ale longer that most breweries out there, and they wanted to celebrate with something more than a cake. We’d send something to space in a heartbeat if we had the budget for it.

The most impressive part of this little endeavor is that none of the beers were broken. Remember that egg drop experiment where you had to protect your egg from a rooftop drop?

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